Unit 2: Building a New Nation

Learning Targets

I can identify the impetus for the Constitutional Convention (limitations of government under the Articles of Confederation), and analyze the events and outcomes of the Convention (i.e., the “bundle of compromises”).I can interpret the ideas and principles expressed in the U.S. Constitution.I can explain the development of the Bill of Rights, and assess various debates of the day.I can identify and evaluate the political and territorial changes resulting from westward expansion of the United States in the early nineteenth century.I can analyze and evaluate federal and state policies toward American Indians in the first half of the nineteenth century.I can evaluate, take, and defend positions on the development of U.S. foreign policy during the early nineteenth century (e.g., Embargo Act, Monroe Doctrine).I can describe and evaluate the impacts of the First Industrial Revolution during the nineteenth century (e.g., the Lowell system, immigration, changing technologies, transportation innovations).I can identify and evaluate the major events and issues that promoted sectional conflicts and strained national cohesiveness in the antebellum period.I can identify significant religious, philosophical, and social reform movements of the nineteenth century and their impact on American society.I can identify the major characteristics of the abolition movement in the antebellum period, its achievements, failures, and Southern opposition to it.I can analyze the women’s rights and the suffrage movements and the impact of women on other reform movements in the antebellum period.I can compare and contrast the economic, social, and cultural differences of the North and South during the antebellum period.